Gotti Legacy: Once-Powerful Mob in Tatters

Tapes led to many convictions

By Anthony M. DeStefano | STAFF WRITER

June 11, 2002

Outside the Ravenite social club in Little Italy, Gotti, second from right, said goodbye to friends and business associates. At right is brother Peter Gotti and left is longtime friend Angelo Ruggiero. (Newsday/Al Raia)

"This is gonna be a Cosa Nostra till I die," John Gotti said - poor grammar and all - in a conversation caught on a surveillance tape in 1990.

Gotti was right about the staying power of the mob, but just barely.

More than a decade later, La Cosa Nostra, the American variation of the old Italian Mafia, is still kicking. But because of Gotti's flamboyance and carelessness, the mob, particularly his Gambino crime family, is in a very bad way, law enforcement officials and organized crime experts said.

Weakened and off balance from 10 years of concerted federal and state prosecutions, the Gambino clan appears to be only a shell of what it once was.

With Gotti's prison death by cancer at the age of 61, mob experts were busy mulling how the leadership of the family might shape up. So many old leaders have been carted off to prison or graveyards that experts believe the crime family will be hard pressed to regroup.

Many old-time mobsters simply don't want the trouble that the mantle of boss brings, noted Joe Coffey, a former NYPD detective who investigated Gambino confederates for many years.

Gotti's older brother, Peter, 62, ascended to the family leadership post in recent weeks, federal officials said, but he was indicted last week on federal waterfront racketeering charges, a development that has led to his detention without bail.

With Peter Gotti off the street, investigators are looking at several new leadership prospects. One investigator said that despite federal prosecutors' belief that Peter Gotti was the new boss, it appears that the Gambino crime family was really being run by a loose consensus of top captains and underbosses.

Among the reputed crime family members in circulation nowadays are old Gotti crony Jack D'Amico, Danny Marino and Arnold Squitieri, the latter from New Jersey.

Gotti's brother Richard V. Gotti, 59, a reputed family captain, was arrested in the waterfront case and, investigators say, is expected to steer away from any questionable activity for fear of forfeiting his freedom on bail.

One investigator, who asked not to be identified, speculated that Thomas Gambino, the son of the late Carlo Gambino, could be approached by some crime family members to make a run at the leadership.

It remains to be seen, though, if the aging Thomas Gambino, who was released from prison in 2002 after serving 4 years for racketeering, would want to flirt with more legal trouble.

For now, it is well known that mob funerals are still closely watched by police for clues to crime family succession, so prying ears and eyes may attend the wake and memorial service for the "Dapper Don."

"The key here is who is going to attend his funeral," the investigator said. "If other families all come, it is a sign of respect. If not, watch out - this is the time for them to make a move."